PIERRE, S.D. — The governor of South Dakota has signed a bill protecting the rights of faith-based adoption agencies to decline to place children with homosexuals.

While the legislation does not specifically mention homosexuality, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said that he was concerned that “private child-placement agencies acting in the best interest of a child could be subject to a lawsuit when denying placement to someone in a ‘protected class,’ such as members of the LGBT community.”

“The state may not discriminate or take any adverse action against a child-placement agency or an organization seeking to become a child-placement agency on the basis, wholly or partly, that the child-placement agency has declined or will decline to provide any service that conflicts with, or provide any service under circumstances that conflict with a sincerely-held religious belief or moral conviction of the child-placement agency,” S.B. 149 reads in part.

Daugaard, who formerly served as the director of the Children’s Home Society, told reporters he wanted to ensure that placement agencies aren’t punished or forced to close because they run their organization in accordance with the tenets of their faith.

“I’m worried that a child placement agency may make what is in the best interest of the child a correct decision but be subject to a lawsuit by someone who has a little bit of a leg up by virtue of being in a protective class,” he said. “And if we can forestall that with this legislation then I’m willing to do that.”

Homosexual advocacy groups, such as the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign, condemned the law, opining that it legalizes discrimination.

“Governor Daugaard’s decision to sign this discriminatory legislation into law is deeply disappointing,” ACLU of South Dakota Policy Director Elizabeth Skarin said in a statement. “Loving, qualified families should not be turned away from adopting a needy child simply because they are LGBT, of a different faith than the agency, or divorced.”

However, supporters of the bill conversely noted that the legislation rather ensures that the state does not discriminate against people of faith. They pointed to cases in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Illinois and California where adoption agencies have been threatened with revocation of their license or the denial of a contract.

“The law would ensure that the State of South Dakota may not coerce [faith-based agencies] to abandon their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions in their placement decisions, and the ongoing need for placement of children in safe nurturing homes will be served,” the South Dakota Family Policy Council (SDFPC) said in a statement.

“These faith-based adoption agencies do not currently receive any state funds for child placement services, but without this protection, they are faced with a possible decision of closing their doors or failing their mission,” it continued. “While this has already occurred in other states, it should never happen here in South Dakota.”

Michigan, North Dakota and Virginia already have protective measures in place, and Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma are considering passing similar laws.

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Grace Kim Kwon

Yes!! It’s time!! ALL Westerners should really start differenciating the destructive homosexual immorality and the good noble moral Christian religion, before they hurt their own children further. The West has gone insane in recent years by having too many dissolved family units and applying racial equality upon sexual immorality. Godless and childless individuals should be outlawed from taking leaderships because they are just greedy and don’t care about mankind or the future.

At this rate, both the truth and morality will be altogether prohibited in the secular West and all its mentally-slave nations. The Western white people always need the Judeo-Christian values to be good and do what is right. The Westerners are not smarter than the Holy Bible; secular nations only live for infanticide and unthinkable immorality. No more insane reign of the stupid incorrect political correctness. Man needs God to be good and also to be sane; today’s secular Western culture is the mega proof of the truth in the entire universe!!

Kel

Please show me data which support the argument that Christians are empirically more moral/ethical or less prone to crime than gays and lesbians or secularists. There are good and bad Christians, good and bad atheists, good and bad Muslims, and so on. Individuals should be judged based on his or her own actions, not their religion, skin color, sexual preference, or what have you.

Your assertion that secular people “only live for infanticide and unthinkable immorality” is asinine. I am a nonbeliever, and I have quite a few secular/nonreligious friends. None of us has killed babies or, as I assume you’re referring to, has had an abortion. The only law I have ever broken is that I speed occasionally and I might have jaywalked a couple of times. I’ve never done illegal drugs in my entire life or smoked one cigarette. I’ve never smoked weed. I don’t sleep around. I drink alcohol sparingly (1 or 2 drinks about every month or so), and never did while underage.

Honestly, I’m sure our goals in life are not much different. I find meaning in my life as most people do – I find meaning in shared time with family and loved ones, in striving to achieve my highest potential, and to leave a world that’s better, to name a few things. My main concerns are my family and my career. Other than that, I enjoy running, hiking, sports, drawing, painting, piano, and playing with my dogs. Maybe catch a movie. Some weekends I tutor kids or volunteer at homeless shelters. I would hardly call that immoral.

And if you want to talk about not caring about humankind or the future, just look at the people who typically are against environmentalism. In the US, they tend to be fundamentalist Christians or of the extreme religious right. Secular humanists on the other hand, want every person no matter the color, gender or sexual preference to have the same basic human rights, and want to preserve a habitable environment for posterity.

This policy of being able to deny people adoption based on sexual-orientation or religion is not an example of mere “political incorrectness”, it is discrimination, plain and simple. And it is misguided and simply wrong. Parents need to be able to provide for a child and love him or her. And these qualities are certainly not limited to white, Christian heterosexuals. Broad, sweeping generalizations of groups of people do everyone a disservice.

Grace Kim Kwon

Unbelieving Westerners blaspheme and support the killing of the preborn children and demand homosexuality. Christian Westerners seek the truth and keep purity and conduct God’s love. The mega proof for all to see in the Western former Christendom.

james blue

So can a secular agency decline to place a child into a Christian home?

Kel

“Religious freedom” these days is really just code for “Christian supremacy” or theocracy. A way to continue to suppress those in the minority or underrepresented in positions of power – whether it is on the basis of skin color, sexual orientation, gender, or religion (or lack thereof).

Grace Kim Kwon

Sexual orientation should not be included; sin has no equality with anything. And people should be constantly encouraged and taught to believe in God instead to hold atheism. Atheism promotes the godless evil willfully and knowingly. The Western culture is screwed up this century by equality the good and the evil. In such a world, villains take control of the people. Americans need the Holy Bible for life and freedom and justice.

Kel

Atheism promotes nothing except a lack of belief in gods. No one has yet given me a logical reason why a same-sex relationship between consenting adults is wrong or harmful.

Have you read the Bible? It’s full of violence and misogyny. It literally says to kill disobedient children.

Grace Kim Kwon

You are wrong. Atheism forces lies and conducts tyranny and godlessness and immorality and infanticide and suicide. Everyone lives out his doctrines. Westerners including Americans don’t know anything about atheism’s brutal reign because they’ve been always protected by the good civilized Christian Church. You guys are bored species. Consent means not a thing on Planet Earth. People take drugs and commit incest and prostitution and suicide and cannibalism by consent as well. Abortion is not consented by the victims but is still carried out.

Western culture is wrong to force people to endorse homosexuality and transgenderism; sin has no equality with anything. People have rights to morality. The Holy Bible teaches not to submit to villains like the American pervs of this century. Grown children should be turned to police for execution if they are mass-endangering terrorists. Read things correctly. Western civilization was superior only because they had the Holy Bible in the readable form. You guys would have been illiterate savages like the rest if you had no Bible. Bible-less former Western Christendom is becoming a Sodom. Jude 1.

Kel

No one is forcing you to accept homosexuality or transgenderism. But that doesn’t mean you can discriminate against people for it. You can choose not to have those people in your personal life, but human rights are for everyone.

Grace Kim Kwon

Homosexuality and transgenderism is sin. Western whites are wrong to apply the depraved sinfulness in the civil rights movements. Sins are nothing like skin colors or birth genders.

Kel

We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think love is love, as long as it’s between consenting adults.

Kel

Atheism does not promote anything you listed. It is simply the rejection of a claim. You have every right to disagree with the idea of atheism, but atheism is not a doctrine. This is a very common misconception. There is no set of beliefs or rules. It simply means one does not belief in gods. That’s it. Perhaps some atheists promote certain things, but the idea itself is only the rejection of supernatural claims of deities. Nothing more.

Grace Kim Kwon

Americans have no idea on atheism’s reign because America is founded on the Christian goodness. Atheism treats human life as dirt and massacres those who do not comply. Western version of atheism blasphemes against God and forces sexual immorality upon the people as current observation goes.

Kel

The Founders were primarily Deist, not Christian.

Kel

You have yet to present a single logical reason why homosexuality is morally wrong.

Kel

Again, atheism itself promotes nothing. It is a rejection of gods and that’s it.

Grace Kim Kwon

Christian home is good and none should decline it. If USA is split into a Christian state and a secular state, everyone will flee to the Christian state.

james blue

Look up “Hana Grace-Rose Williams”

Many states allow exemptions from child abuse laws for religious reasons.

Grace Kim Kwon

Secular Western culture is a child-abuse; exposure to homosexuality is a child-abuse. All children have rights to innocence and morality and normality.

Kel

I think that telling children to behave or else they’ll be burned for eternity is more like child abuse.

Grace Kim Kwon

Everyone has rights to the truth. Hell is God’s justice. Westerners don’t hear about hell anymore, and that’s why you guys apply racial equality upon the sexual pervs and make all mankind suffer by prohibiting morality. You guys need the Holy Bible and real parents to be normal. Read Revelation chapter 20-22.

Kel

I’ve read the entire Bible. A couple of times. You want to talk about perverts? What about all those corrupt priests? Where was their morality? There are good and bad people in every religion and that also applies to those who don’t subscribe to one.

And who gets to pick what is “normal” anyway? As long as people aren’t hurting anyone, I say live and let live. What people do in their private lives doesn’t affect us.

1Caryn

I’m Christian and I don’t believe in “hell” as some people depict it- In biblical times- outside the wall of Jersalem was a place called Gehenna – (Hell) – which burned with an eternal fire and brimstone- and bodies of criminals would be thrown their for cremation and disposal. I always figured that’s what we were being taught- and not to burn in a tortuous place forever more- mainly because my God is a benevolent God. jmho. I agree with you that teaching a child with fear isn’t a good thing. As for the priests – they should be defrocked and turned over to the authorities as pedophiles. And on that note, hope you have a good holiday – secular or otherwise.

Grace Kim Kwon

Jesus Himself taught otherwise. Those who don’t teach hell teach others to live out immorality. If you don’t believe in hell, you are no Christian. God is holy. His punishment of conscious torment in eternal hell is the perfect justice. He is sovereign and His Word is true, not your wishful thoughts. Every unrepentant sinner gets justice according to what he has done. Revelation 20.

1Caryn

No, Jesus taught love and kindness and that those who followed Him and loved God would be with him in Heaven one day but He never taught eternal damnation – that was taught by man to instill fear of God to make people love Him. Jesus taught that God loves us all and if we repent, we will live again. What was taught was as I said – the place called Gehenna – research it. That was the “eternal brimstone and fire”. And Jesus also told us not to judge others – or else we will be judged. He also taught that even the Gentiles who were not Christians could be part of His eternal Kingdom.

Grace Kim Kwon

You only remember partial on what Jesus said. You must read and believe the entire Holy Bible, not just a research. A partial truth concealing other truths is not a truth but a falsehood as a whole. Jesus also taught God’s holiness and judgment Read Matthew ch. 25, Revelation ch.14 and 20. The conscious torment is eternal and just. You must trust in God’s justice instead of humanism.

1Caryn

Sorry- if you want to believe that our Heavenly Father would torture or condemn us for all eternity – go ahead – But I don’t agree with your interpretation. Nor will I argue the point. I believe He is a forgiving and benevolent God who loves us all as His children and like a good parent would never condemn or torture them regardless. And I have read the bible and did research about the history of when it was written. I also agree with Kei – that teaching children to fear God instead of love is a form of abuse.

Grace Kim Kwon

Children have rights to the whole truth. The Word of God teaches that there is the eternal conscious torment for all unrepentant sinners. Withholding truth from anyone is wrong. God is holy and just and sovereign. Everyone must have proper fear and love for God. You grew up in a false culture in which people take sins lightly, but the Word of God alone is right, not any culture or anyone’s wishful thinking.

Imaginations on afterlife are out there countlessly, but only the Word of God is true. Isaiah 40. Your belief cannot be honestly concluded if all of the Holy Scripture is accounted for. We know God is merciful and just and does what He says He will. Trust in God instead of your own understanding. Proverbs 3.

Grace Kim Kwon

“The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.

And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” ( Revelation 20)

Kel

As always, Caryn, thank you for sharing your views and being respectful. Have a great day/night!

1Caryn

You too Kel have a great night/day – Go Yankees –

Grace Kim Kwon

You did not comprehend the Holy Bible. Read it again with an honest heart, and humbly ask God in prayer to help you understand His Word. Christianity alone is the right religion. All other religions and philosophies and ideologies including the Western secularism seriously violate human rights and produce massive number of human victims if followed faithfully or accurately.

The Holy Bible decides what is right and normal, and both clear human conscience and science back it up. Gay West’s inclination to depraved immorality hurts everyone on earth and must be countered in every possible way. No slaverey to perv Americans. Sin is slavery. Today’s Western whites and their mental slaves need to get back to the Holy Bible for the truth and freedom.

Kel

I did. Just because I came to a different conclusion than you doesn’t mean I didn’t read it with an open mind. Please understand, not everyone thinks the same way.

Kel

I hope one day you find it within yourself to question your own beliefs or at least think about why you believe what you believe. Have a good day.

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